This application relates to determining the pulse rate of a biological pulsatile signal in the presence of noise. The techniques described herein are particularly useful for processing signals from pulse oximetry sensors.
Pulse oximetry is a non-invasive diagnostic procedure for measuring the level of oxygen saturation in a patient's arterial blood. Pulse oximetry is based on the principle of passing light energy from at least two wavelengths to a light-absorptive physiologic medium, acquiring the reflected (or transmitted) emitted light, in response to the light absorption, and calculating the oxygen saturation level from the acquired signals. Typical pulse oximeters have two main components: a sensor attached to a patient's skin for acquiring signals, and a processing unit for processing the acquired signals in order to determine the arterial blood oxygen saturation and pulse rate. Unfortunately, conventional pulse oximetry systems can be susceptible to noise, which can result in unstable readings, inaccurate measurements of pulse rate and oxygen saturation and false alarms. Noise can be particularly difficult to deal with in reflection pulse oximetry systems, where the signal levels are much smaller than in transmission pulse oximetry systems.